


Borrowed Time

by highest_water



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 07:10:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6364387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highest_water/pseuds/highest_water
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma cannot do this. She cannot say goodbye to the man who has come to mean everything to her, but she refuses to let him down again. <br/>5x15 speculation</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borrowed Time

She stands alone. She stands alone and tries desperately to come to peace with it as a statement of fact. Emma Swan. Alone. It had been that way for so long it shouldn't feel so foreign to her. Shouldn't shake her to the very core.

Emma Swan is used to being alone and yet somehow, somehow this solitude is laced with more loneliness than she has ever known. She feels bereft in the knowledge that he will be gone. He will be gone and she has been the orchestrator of his demise. If only she hadn't acted so selfishly, so carelessly, recklessly. Maybe there was another way? Another path she could have (should have) taken.

Her vision fogs with a haze of tears as she looks down onto the street below. Wrapping her arms around herself brings her no comfort. Half of her wishes to flee from the house which is now the ghost of a home.

(Half of her is just _missing_.)

Tears escape as she recalls the pain etched on face. His desperate plea for her to understand. To understand how broken he is. How there's a weariness in his bones. How desperate he is for her to be free, to be whole.

She vows to accept his decision. She has taken that freedom from him before and will not do so again. She has spent a lifetime being a pawn in other people's plans; a lifetime being denied the agency to choose. Killian is perhaps the only person in her life who has never denied her the right to choose - the right to assert herself as _Emma_. Not the crown princess, not the saviour, just Emma. She will not deny such a right to him. Not again. She will support him no matter how much it tears her in two.

She wishes to tell him this (if he returns). He had fled after a distraught Liam with a whispered, 'Swan, please.' She has no idea if that is the last she will see of him. The last time she will see the love in his gaze, feel his warmth beneath her palms. Maybe it will be better this way. She cannot part with him again.

She has no words to do justice to how she feels for him. No earthly way to express how much he mean to her - how enormously grateful she is to have ever met him.

She doesn't hear someone else enter the house until he is almost beside her. She falls into his embrace. Revels in the feel of him. Pulls him closer by the lapels of his jacket and bitterly wishes they could never be parted.

'Swan,' he rasps as he finally inches away from where he had nestled his head into the curve of her neck. He swipes gently at the tear tracks on her cheeks.

'Killian,' she whispers, 'I...I have no words. No words to say...'

He leans his forehead on hers and she bitterly hopes that he understands. Understands how entirely and unequivocally she adores him.

'I know, love. I know.' Each word is wracked with emotion and she wills herself to make this easier for him.

She raises shaking hands to cup his face. Holds his gaze steady with hers.

'I love you, Killian. I will always love you. You changed my life so completely. So wonderfully. Whether we share a heart or not, mine belongs to you.'

It feels like an eternity before he speaks and for once she wishes he wasn't so good with words for they cut right to the very heart of the matter. They seep through her skin and breathe life to her own unspoken fears.

'It would be but a beautiful lie.'

She knows, _knows_ , deep down that he is likely right. Her actions have been desperate. Desperate to remedy her mistakes, desperate to stop his pain, her pain. Now she is desperate for silence. She wills him not to speak because she fears he truth in his words.

'He has you trapped here and that cannot stand. I would go to the ends of the earth of time for you, Swan but I will _not_ subject you to this life. I cannot believe that Hades would truly let us live freely if we escaped here. We would be on borrowed time.'

The cool metal of her ring (his ring, Liam's ring) presses into her skin as she curls it in her fist.

'He has tortured me and failed, but were he to get to you...' His voice tails away as if he cannot comprehend it. She knows he won't. Accepted long ago that Killian Jones puts her first.

She tries to anchor herself by tightening her grip on the ring. An effort to tether herself to some reality where this is not happening. Where she is not losing her future to somebody else's games.

'If there were another way, Emma.' He swallows down the gasp in his voice and clenches his jaw against the rising tide off motions. 'Another way, _any_ way, for me to know that you were truly safe then I would do it. I wish I could... I wish I could be with you. I wish we had more...'

She watches his resolve crumble then. Sees the moment he breaks. The way his body curls in on itself.

'And Liam,' he half sobs as he drags a trembling hand through his hair.

She realises then that she can still save him, even if not in the way that she wishes. She can save him from the guilt. From the self-loathing and the regret. This she can understand. How he is trying to help both of his loves even if it is tearing him apart. She cannot fathom how she could bring herself to make this choice were it he and Henry. (She knows that she would.)

'I am with you, Killian. I am with you in this and all matters. I took away your choice once and I should not have.'

He moves to protest but it only spurs her on. Even now, he is thinking of her and putting her first. Trying to make her recognise her self worth. She needs to do the same for him.

'I took away your choice instead of supporting your wishes. Well, I love you. I love you and I am supporting you now.' She chest heaves with the weight of her next words - 'I support you in this.'

His fingers grip her waist so tightly that she is fairly certain they will bruise. He gathers himself to speak and she feels the panic rising within her - each breath a moment closer to goodbye.

'I should find your lad, I need to apologise.' He doesn't make eye contact as he contemplates the next painful goodbye.

Her heart clenches with the realisation that she is not the only one losing someone dear to them. Killian is their family. He has a family who will share in her grief.

'You have no need to apologise.' The strength in her voice surprising them both, 'You're protecting him and putting his needs first. _Never_ apologise for that.'

He's been so good to Henry. So enjoys his company. She's losing her partner in this as well as her lover, her best friend.

She presses her lips to his and revels in the jolt of electricity, of love, that shoots through her. It ignites her magic and spreads much needed warmth. She loves him. She loves him and is about to lose him. This wonderful man.

'Go find him,' she says and despite everything she tries to paint a shaky smile on her face for him. He backs away slowly, hesitantly, and heads off to find her boy.

She watches him leave and the tides of loneliness rise within her. Her heart may be in one piece but it will never be whole again.

She steals herself for the last goodbye.

 


End file.
